2 Corinthians 3 KJV
Ministers of the New Covenant
2 Corinthians Chapter 3: Ministers of the New Covenant
This chapter explores themes of Sanctification. Paul's reinterpretation of Moses' veil from Exodus 34 portrays it not just as physical covering but as an enduring spiritual blindness afflicting those who read the old covenant without turning to Christ, adding a layer of ongoing judicial hardening absent from the original narrative.
1o we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
4 And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:
8 How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?
9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
10 For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
11 For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
12 Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech:
13 And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:
14 But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16 Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17 Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the LORD.
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Did You Know?
Paul's reinterpretation of Moses' veil from Exodus 34 portrays it not just as physical covering but as an enduring spiritual blindness afflicting those who read the old covenant without turning to Christ, adding a layer of ongoing judicial hardening absent from the original narrative.
The metaphor of believers as 'epistles of Christ' written with the Spirit on fleshy tables of the heart inverts ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman practices of inscribed stone or wax tablets used for permanent legal or royal decrees, shifting authority from external stone to internal transformation.
The declaration that 'the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life' establishes an early Christian distinction between literal and life-giving readings of Scripture, influencing later patristic and Reformation debates on law versus gospel and allegorical exegesis.
By stating the old covenant's glory was 'done away' and temporary, the chapter undermines Jewish expectations of the Sinai covenant's eternal endurance, framing its radiance as deliberately fading to highlight the new covenant's surpassing permanence.
The phrase 'where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty' directly links removal of the veil to freedom from condemnation, prefiguring themes of spiritual emancipation that later shaped Christian understandings of conscience and resistance to legalistic bondage.
Commentary & Study Notes Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871) ยท Public Domain Are we beginning again to recommend ourselves (2Co 5:12) (as some of them might say he had done in his first Epistle; or, a reproof to "some" who had begun doing so)! commendationโฆ
Classic verse-by-verse commentary on 2 Corinthians 3 from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871). Covers: The sole commendation he needs to prove God's sanction of his ministry he has in his corinthian converts: his ministry excels the mosaic, as the gospel of life and liberty excels the law of condemnation.
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- Are we beginning again to recommend ourselves (2Co 5:12) (as some of them might say he had done in his first Epistle; or, a reproof to "some" who had begun doing so)! commendation โ recommendation. (Compare 2Co 10:18). The "some" refers to particular persons of the "many" (2Co 2:17) teachers who opposed him, and who came to Corinth with letters of recommendation from other churches; and when leaving that city obtained similar letters from the Corinthians to other churches. The thirteenth canon of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) ordained that "clergymen coming to a city where they were unknown, should not be allowed to officiate without letters commendatory from their own bishop." The history (Ac 18:27) confirms the existence of the custom here alluded to in the Epistle: "When Apollos was disposed to pass into Achaia [Corinth], the brethren [of Ephesus] wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive him." This was about two years before the Epistle,and is probably one of the instances to which Paul refers, as many at Corinth boasted of their being followers of Apollos (1Co 1:12).
- 2
- our epistle โ of recommendation. in our hearts โ not letters borne merely in the hands. Your conversion through my instrumentality, and your faith which is "known of all men" by widespread report (1Co 1:4-7), and which is written by memory and affection on my inmost heart and is borne about wherever I go, is my letter of recommendation (1Co 9:2). known and read โ words akin in root, sound, and sense (so 2Co 1:13). "Ye are known to be my converts by general knowledge: then ye are known more particularly by your reflecting my doctrine in your Christian life." The handwriting is first "known," then the Epistle is "read" [GROTIUS] (2Co 4:2; 1Co 14:25). There is not so powerful a sermon in the world, as a consistent Christian life. The eye of the world takes in more than the ear. Christians' lives are the only religious books the world reads. IGNATIUS [Epistle to the Ephesians, 10] writes, "Give unbelievers the chance of believing through you. Consider yourselves employed by God; your lives the form of language in which He addresses them. Be mild when they are angry, humble when they are haughty; to their blasphemy oppose prayer without ceasing; to their inconsistency, a steadfast adherence to your faith."
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